occasion and finally acknowledging that the principal part of what he intended was in a Book of M. Dow's But scarce had he absolved me from it when he indeavoured presently to make good the charge out of some scattered passages in a Book of mine against M. Burton published in the year 1637. so that it seems to be my fortune to be called unto as late a reckoning by M. Baxter for some passages in my Answer to Burtons most seditious Pamphlets and by D. Barnard and him both for some things taken up here and there out of my History of the Sabbath first published in the year 1635. And as if this had not been enough to quicken me to a new encounter he passeth from one point unto another charging me with profaneness in reproaching extemporary Prayer and being an enemy to the holy improvements of the Lord's day c. accusing me for many unjust as well as uncharitable speeches against my brethren for having some bloody desires and making such rigorous Laws to hang up all that are against me for speaking more favourably of the Papists then the Protestant partie with many other things intermixed here and there in some of which he disputes against me and in others he desires to be satisfied by me So that taking one thing with another he hath afforded me work enough in returning an answer which being to long to be contained in a Letter I have digested it Letter-wise into a set discourse upon all particulars which are offered to me Now M. Baxter's Letter was as followeth The Copy of M. Baxter's Answer to the first Letter of D. Heylyn's Reverend SIR I Received yours of September 13. containing your favourable judgment of my extorted discourse of Grotius his Religion with your exception of that only which concerns your â—elf And first you here wish I had spared your name unless I could have proved you to have been one of that Religion which yâ—u think I cannot or found some more particular charge against you c. To which I answer First I now wish I had spared your name my self for the reason that I shall render you anon But secondly I never gave the least intimation that I took you to be of Grotius Religion and therefore you need not call for proof of it it is another subject the sensing of the word Puri an that I am speaking of where I mention your name I hope you think not that I charge every man with the same opinion that is but named by me in the same Book Thirdly Yea I did not so much as charge you at all that is accuse you but tell the world who you took for a Puritan Concerning which words in Answer to the rest of your Letter I shall give you the just account I had read on one day above 20. years ago when it first came out your Book against M Burton and M. Dow's Book against him and I think one of M. Pocklinton's on another occasion I certainly remembred the foresaid character of a Puritan in one of them and I was perswaded that it was in yours and that something of it more or less was in both I now confess to you it was my temerity the concomitant of hast to mention you upon the trust of my memory after above 20. years time for I never had your Book since and now upon search I find the principal part of what I intended is in M. Dow's who charactereth them from their Doctrines of predestination perseverance or non-ability to fulfill the Law c. 4. But so much of it I find in yours as justifieth what I said of you if I can understand you you deal with M. Burton as the Puritans Oracle page 152. their superintendent Champion c. Preface And your description of him containeth first that he follows Illyricus in his Doctrines providentia predestinatione gratia libero Arbitrio c. pag. 182. And to satisfie us fully what you meant you refer us to the Arminians necessaria responsio pag. 83 where with pag. 82. 84 85. it is expresly manifest that it is the Doctrine of Pareus and the rest of the Contra-remonstrants that the Arminians there do charge upon Illiricus and consequently that you do charge on M. Burton the Oracle as you call him of the Puritans and so upon the Puritans with him If you say you charge not these on him quatenus a Puritan I Answer You carry it openly in all your Book as if you dealt with him only as a Puritan and seditious and so describe Puritans by him If you mix such Doctrinal charges and afterwards tell us that you meant them on some other account you satisfie your Reader that understandeth you as describing Puritans only when you so often give the person described that name and profess to oppose him as such and tel us of no other ground And what else you mean by their accustomed wresting of the Article in the point of predestination is past my understanding there being no accustomed Doctrine but the Anti-Arminian among the Puritans in the point of Predestination that you can call a wresting of the Article you add also to help us further to understand you that it is false that D. Jackson ' s Books are to maintain Arminianism pag. 122. 123. 5. Sir You are the expounder of your own words and may give us the Law in what sense we shall understand them because they are the signs of your own mind which is known only to your self And if you shall but tell me that you meant somewhat else then your words in the common sense import I shall take my self bound to understand you accordingly hereafter and if you require it I shall willingly publish an account of my mis-understanding of you with my following satisfaction to the world to do you right But till you shall give us another sense of your own you must needs allow us to take your words in the common sense 6. I shall not trouble you with any more on that subject But were it not that in your writings I â—avour a spirit so very distant from my disposition that I have small hopes that my words will escape your displeasure I should on this occasion have dealt freely with you about many things in many of your Books that have long been matter of scandal and grief to men that have much Christian meekness and moderation Many reproaches against extemporary Prayer the holy improvement of the Lords day c. with many unjust as well as uncharitable speeches of your Brethren whom you took for adversaries are matters that I am exceeding confident you have exceeding cause in tears and sorrow to bewaile before the Lord and for which you are very much obliged to publish your penitential lamentations to the World and were it my case I would not for ten thousand Worlds dye before I had done it and if I erre in this I think it not through partiality but through weakness Oh the
in him then art thou written in the book of life and shalt be saved 29. In the last place we are to note that there is a clause in the end of the Article viz. that we are to receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture then which nothing can be more contrary to the Doctrine of the Supralapsarians which restrains Election unto life to few particulars without respect had to their Faith in Christ or Christs death for them and extendeth the Decree of Reprobation to the far greatest part of Manking without relation to their incredulity or unbelief And though your adversary tells us that he who reads the common Prayer Book with an unprejudiced mind cannot chuse but observe divers passages which make for a personall and eternal Election yet I find but little ground for the affirmation the Promises of God as they are generally set forth unto us in Holy Scripture being the ground of many Prayers and Passages in the Publique Liturgie for in the General Confession it is said expresly that the Promises of God in Christ Jesus our Lord are declared not to this or that man particularly but to all mankind declared to all because first made to all mankind in Adam in the promise of Redemption by the seed of the woman Gen. 3. 15. Secondly it is said in the Te de um that when our Saviour Christ had overcome the sharpness of Death he did open the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers Thirdly we find a Prayer for the day of the Passion commonly called Good-Friday which is so far from pointing to any personal Election that it bringeth all Jâ—ws Turkâ— and Infidels within the possibility and compass of it Morciful God so the Church teacheth us to pray who host made all men and hatest nothing which thou hast made nor wouldest the death of a sinner but rather that he should be converted and live have mercy upon all Jews Turks Infidelâ— and Hereticks and take from them all ignorance hardness of heart and contempt of thy word and so fetch them home blessed Lord to thy flock that they may be saved amongst the remnant of the true Israelites and be made one fold under one Shepherd Jesus Christ our Lord who liveth and reigneth c. Can your Antagonist read this Prayer and observe those passages and think the Liturgy so contradictory to it self as to afford him any proof that such a personal Election from all Eternity as an unprejudiced mind may desire to meet with If not why doth he talk so confidently of divers passages which a careful Reader cannot chuse but observe in the Common Prayer Book which enclines that way yea let him direct us to those passages and reconcile the differences which he finds betwixt them 30. And though it was not my intent to produce any arguments at this time in Justification of the Doctrine of the Church of England as by you maintained yet since your Adversary stands so much on the 17th Article and thinks it makes so strongly for defence of the Calvinists I will here lay down the Judgment of two Godly Martyrs who had a chief hand in the Great Work of this Reformation and therefore must needs know the meaning of the Church therein more then any of us The first of these shall be Bishop Hooper who in the Preface to his Exposition on the ten Commandments hath expresly told us That Cain was no more excluded from the Promise of Christ till he excluded himself then Abel Saul then David Judas then Peter Esau then Jacob that God is said to have hated Esau not because he was dis-inherited of Eternal Life but in laying his Mountains and his Heritage waste for the Dragons of the Wilderness Mal. 1. 3. that the threatnings of God against Esau if he had not of his own wilful malice excluded himself from the Promise of Grace should no more have hindred his Salvation then Gods threatnings against Nineve c. That it is not a Christian mans part to say that God hath written Fatal Laws as the Stoick and with necessity of destiny violently pulleth the one by the hair into Heaven and thrusteth the other headlong into Hell that the cause of Rejection or Damnation is Sin in man which will not bear neither receive the Promises of the Gospel c. And secondly we shall find Bishop Latimer in his Sermon on the third Sunday after the Epiphany speaking in this manner viz. That if the most are damned the fault is not in God but in themselves For Deus vult omnes homines salvos fieri God would that all men should be saved but they themselves procure their own Damnation and despise the passion of Christ by their own wicked and inordinate living He telleth us also in his fourth Sermon preached in Lincoln shire That Christ only and no man else merited Remission Justification and sound felicity for as many as will believe the same that Christ shed as much blood for Judas as for Peter that Peter believed and therefore was saved that Judas did not believe and therefore was condemned the fault being in him only and in no body else More to which purpose I have elsewhere noted as afore was said and give you this only for a tast to stay your stomack And though Archbishop Cranmer the principal Architect in the work spent his endeavours chiefly against the Papists yet that most holy Martyr tells us somewhat in his fifth Book against Gardiner fol. 372. which doth directly look this way Where speaking of the sacrifice which was made by Christ he lets us know That he took unto himself not only their sinnes that many years before were dead and put their trust in him but also all the sinnes of those that until his coming again should truly believe in his Gospel so that now we may look for no other Priest nor sacrifice to take away our sins but onely him and his sacrifice that as his dying once was offered for all so as much as pertained unto him he took all mens sinnes unto himself In all which passages and many others of like nature in the other two there is not any thing which makes for such a personal absolute and irreversible decree of Predestination as Calvin hath commended to us and therefore no such meaning in the 17th Article as his Disciples and adherents in defence of themselves and their opinions would obtrude upon it For if there were your Adversary must give me some better Reason then I think he can why Cranmer Ridly Hooper and the rest that laboured in this Reformation should command the Paraphrases of Erasmus to be translated into English studied by Priests and so kept in Parish Churches to be read by the People whose Doctrines are so contrary in all these particulars to that of Calvin and his followers 31. But I return again unto your Adversary who in the next place remembreth us of a Catechism
Heylyn Abingdon Mar. 28. 1659. 8. This Letter being sent after the other it was no hard matter to divine of the answer to it if any answer came at all I might have learned by my address to M. Baxter that there was nothing to be gained by such civilities but one reproach upon another men of that spirit being generally for quod scripsi scripsi as we know who was seldome accustomed to retract or qualify what they once had written But as my own ingenuity invited me to write the first so to the sending of the second I was directed in a manner by the Justificator pag. 15. where he complains that you M. Peirce did not endeavour to purge the peccant humor by a private Letter before you made the passionate adventure of calling him obstinate This made me not without some thoughts that a private Letter might prevail upon such a person who desired not to be accounted obstinate in his own opinions from which modesty I might collect a probable hope that he would not persevere in any error when he was once convinced of it but rather make amends to truth and reparation to the parties which were injured by him The least I could expect if he vouchsaft me any answer was to learn the name or names of those by whom the yong man had been abused in the information which might entitle me perhaps to some other adversary whom I had more desire to deal with But if no answer came at all as perchance there might not I should be able to conclude that he had neither proof nor Author for either calumny which whether he had or not will evidently appear by the following Letters which though unlookt for came at last to make good the Proverb and are here subjoyned verbatim without alteration M. Hickman's Answer to D. Heylyn's first Letter SIR 9. YOu are pleased to honour me with a Letter and to subscribe your self my very loving Friend and Christian Brother I take it for a great favour and shall be heartily glad if my Answer may procure a good understanding betwixt us and prevent any further trouble Your charge is threefold 1. That in the Preface to my first Edition I say That your Book had as I was informed received the desert of its bitterness being burnt by the hand of the common hang-man I deny not the words nor can I see any reason to be ashamed of them For 1. There is an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons still in force commanding that all Books of the complexion yours is of should be seized and publiquely burnt 2. It was commonly noised that your Book against the Arch-Bishop of Armagh was actually burned 3. I proceeded not barely upon common report but had my intelligence from one of no mean employment who hath his constant residence at White Hall and I am pretty confident your Book had been de facto so disgraced if the sickness and death of the late Protector had not put the Privy counsel upon minding matters of higher concernment And will you now say that I was so zealous in fastening a reproach upon you that I cared not whether it were true or false You have in your own Books printed many matters of fact with more confidence for which you cannot pretend so much ground 2. You charge me that I have made bold with you in my second Edition Novum crimen ante haee tempora inauditum You had in your Examen Historicum bestowed some ugly words upon a Colledge never to mentioned without honour and I by a true relating the whole business against which you so much exclaim labour to vindicate the credit of the Society and for this I must be accounted bold Who can help it 3. You charge me for laying a fouler reproach on the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury because I intimate that he was disgracefully turned out of the Divinity Schooles by Dr. Holland and for this you say I would be troubled to produce my Author It may be you and I are not agreed what it is to be disgracefully turned out of the Schools but if this be it to be publiquely checkt for a seditious person who would unchurch the Protestant Churches beyond the Sea and sow division betwixt us and them by a novel Popish Position You cannot sure think that it will be any trouble to me to produce my Author For you censure and therefore I presume have read M. Prinne's Breviate in which all this is extant totidem verbis That Author having laid such a charge and none of the Arch-Bishops friends having all this while pleaded not guilty I might take it pro Confesso yet I must tell you M. Prinne's is not the onely Ground on which I proceed though what my other Grounds be I shall not declare till I well understand what use you intend to make of my Letters And now Sir I hope that lamentable jeer of my standing in need to pray for Ignorant Readers and such as are fit to be abused might have been spared been bestowed upon some Temporizer whose design it is to ingratiate himselfe with great ones who can complement a Prince so Highly as to style himselfe his Creature and the workmanship of his hands For my own part Favour and Riches I neither want nor seek I have so much of a man in me to be very subject to Errors but I hope I have not so little of a Christian in me as not to be very willing to recall any Error which by any learned man shall be discovered to me The Design of the Historical part of my Book is to prove that till Bishop Laud sat in the Saddle our Divines of prime Note and Authority did in the Five points deliver themselves consonantly to the determinations of the Synod of Dort and that they were enjoyn'd Recantation who were known either to Broach or Print that which now is called Arminianism Can any one deny this In my Doctrinal part I assert that malum morale quà tale non est Ens positivum In which I promise my self that I shall not have you who profess to take your Opinions from the Fathers an Adversary I deny not whose name you so much honour hath in many things deserved well of the University but that his name should be so precious as you intimate to all who love the Church of England I am not yet convinced Me thinks the Character Isidor Pelus gives of Eusebius lib. 2. Epist 246. doth too well suit him That whole Epistle is most heartily recommended to your Reading and so are you to the Grace of Jesus Christ by Your most humble Servant Henry Hickman Mr. Hickmans Answer to Dr. Heylyns second Letter SIR 10. THis Letter was drawn up the last week and had been sent but that I was necessitated to be absent from the University for two or three days I have now received a second Letter wherein you desire by virtue of a promise made in my second Edition to know
zeal and ignorance A writing is subscribed on the 10th of May by Finch Lord Keeper Manchester Lord Privy Seal Littleton Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Banks Atturney General Witsield and Heath his Majesties Serjeants at the Law in which it was declared expresly that the Convocation being called by the Kings writ ought to continue till it was dissolved by the Kings Writ notwithstanding the dissolution of the Parliament But what makes this unto the purpose Our Author a more learned Lawyer then all these together hath resolved the contrary and throw it out as round as a boul that after the dissolution of the Parliament the Clarks of Diocesses and Cathedrals desisted from being publick persons and lost the notion of Representatives and thereby returned to their private condition The Animadvertor instanced in a convocation held in the time of Queen Eliz. An. 1585. which gave the Queen a Benevolence of two shillings in the pound to be raised on the Estates of all the Clergy by the meer censures of the Church without act of peachment Against which not able to object as to the truth and realty of it in matter of Fâ—ct he seems to make it questionable whecher it would hold good or not in point of Law if any turbulent Clergy-man had proved Recusant in payment and having slighted by the name of a blâ—ck â—wan a single instance of an unparliamented inpowred Convocation he imputes the whole success of that â—ash adventure rather unto the popularity of so Peerless a Princess the necessity of her occasions and the tranquillity of the times then to any efficacy or validity in the act it self And to what purpose all this pains but to expose the poor Clergy of the Convocation An. â—640 to the juster censure for following this unquestioned precedent in granting a more liberal benevolence to a gracious soveraign by no other authority then their own 34. If the â—ppealant still remain unsatisfied in this part of the Churches power I shall take a little more pâ—ins to instruct him in it though possibly I may tell him nothing which he knows not already being as learned in the Canons as in the common Law In which capacity I am sure he cannot chuse but know how ordinary a thing it was with Bishops to suspend their Clergy not onely ab officio but a Beneficio and not so onely but to sentence them if they saw just cause for it to a deprivation Which argues them to have a power over the property of the Clergy in their several Diocesses and such a power as had no ground to stand on but the authority of the Canons which conferred it on them And if our Author should object as perhaps he may that though the Canons in some cases do subject the Clergy not only to suspentions but deprivations of their cures and Benefices â—in which their property is concerned yet that it is not so in the case of the Laity whose Estates are not to be bound by so weak a thred I must then lead him to the Canons of 1603 for his satisfaction In which we find six Canons in a row one after another for providing the Book of Common Prayer the Book of Homilies the Bible of the largest Edition a Font for Baptism a fair Communion Table with a Carpet of Silk or other decent stuff to be laid upon it a Pulpit for Preaching of Gods Word a Chest to receive the alms for the Poor and finally for repairing of the Churches or Chappels whensoever they shall fall into any decay all these provisions and reparations to be made at the charges of the several and respective Parishes according to such rates as are indifferently assest upon them by the Church wardens Sides men and such other Parishioners as commonly convened together in the case which rates if any did refuse to make payment of they were compellable thereunto on a presentment made to the Ordinary by the said Church-wardens and other sworn Officers of the several and respective Parishes And yet those Canons never were confirmed by Act of Parliament as none of the like nature had been formerly in Queen Eliz time though of a continual and uncontroled practise upon all occasions The late Lord Primate in * a Letter more lately published by D. Barnard assures the honourable person unto whom he writ it that the making of any Articles or Canons at all to have ever been confirmed in that Kingdom by Act of Parliament is one of Dr. Heylyns Fancies And now it must be another of the Doctors Fancies to say that never any Articles or Canons had ever been confirmed by Act of Paliament in England though possible they may relate unto the binding of the subject in point of Poperty 35. But our Author hath a help at Maw and making use of his five fingers hath thrust a word into the proposition in debate between us which is not to be sound in the first drawing up of the issue The Question at the first was no more then this whether such Canons as were made by the Clergy in their Convocations and authorized by the King under the broad Seal of England could any further bind the subject then as they were confirmed by Act of Parliament And Secondly Whether such Canons could so bind either at such times as the Clergy acted their own Authority or after their admission to King Hen. the 8. in such things as concerned Temporals or temporal matters otherwise then as they were confirmed by national Customes that is to say as afterwards he expounds himselfe until they were consirmed by Act of Parliament Which points being so clearly stated by the Animadvertor in behalf of the Church that no honest evasion could be found to avoid his Argument the Appealant with his five fingers layes down life at the stake and then cryes out that the Animadvertor arrogates more power unto the Church then is due unto it either by the laws of God or man maintaining but he knows not where that Church men may go beyond Ecclesiastical Censures even to the limbs and lives of such as are Recusants to their Constitutions p. 2. so 53. And having taken up the scent he hunts it over all his Book with great noise and violence assuring us that such Canons were constantly checkt and controlled by the Laws of the Land in which the temporal Estate life and limbs of persons were concerned p. 2. fol. 27. As also that the King and Parliament though they directed not the proceedings of Ecclesiastical Courts in cases of Heresie which is more then his History would allow of yet did they order the power of Bishops over declared Hereticks without the direction of the Statute not to proceed to limb and life p. 2. fol. 45. And finally reduceth the whole Question to these two Propositions viz. 1. The proceedings of the Canon Law in what touched temporals of life limb and estate was alwayes limited with the secular Laws and national Customes of England And
his Ink mixt with more of the durty puddle then the Church Historians was with gall and vinegar when he bespattered the poor Clergy in the Preface to his Book of the Grotian Religion with all the filth that could proceed from a Pen so qualified I need not saith he go to M. Whites Centuryes to be acquainted of the qualities of the ejected our Country have had too many of them that have long been a burthen instead of a blessing some never preached but read the Common Prayer Book and some preached much worse then they that were never called Preachers Some understood not the Catechism or Creed many of them lived more in the Ale-house then the Church and used to lead their people in drunkenness cursing swearing quarrelling and other ungodly practises and to amend all by railing at the Puritans Praecisians some that were better would be drunk but now and then and preach once a day remembring still to meet with the Precise least their hearers should have any mind to becom Godly but neglecting most of the Pastoral cure and lived much in worldliness and prophaneness though not so disgracefully as the Rest Which passage when I read over it caused in me so great an horror and amazement that I could not tell whether I might give any credit to my senses or not the words sounding loud in my ears but not sinking at first into my heart For who could possibly believe that one who doth pretend to so much piety should shew himself the master of so little charity To all the Acts and offices of which excellent virtue enumerated by S. Paul in his 1. Epist to the Corinthians cap. 13. he hath shewed himself so great a stranger as if his Soul had never been acquainted with the Graces of it Such as have thrust themselves into other mens livings and they who patronize them in it seem to have quitted all the other properties of Charity to the Sequestred Clergy and retain only to themselves the not seeking their own For they seek after the Benefices and Goods of others The Rear brought up by a young man of * Magdalen Coll. Oxon whom I shall not call a whelp of the same litter though he hath pleased to give me no other title then that of a bird of the same feather who spends his mouth by telling his Reverend brethren of the Brackly breed that the Episcopal Government will be desired by the bad and therefore that they should take care that the Good did not wish it restored also that the Prelatical oppressions were such as might make wise men mad that some of the Prelates might with reason be called Antichristian whose Courts vexed sundry laborious Preachers becaus they could not bow at the name of Jesus when as sundry idle sots whom they might frequently observe to stagger in the streets were never questioned and finally he leaves it unto consideration whether it be not envy rather then conscience which maketh some to exclaim with so much bitterness against the late Ejections Sequestrations Deprivations and whether our late Sequestrations were not more justifiable then those proceedings in the late Archbishops times when men were suspended ab officio beneficio meerly for not Reading the Book of sports In which particulars although he doth not â—ark so loud yet he bites as close as any other in â—he Pack who have deeper mouths I must confess that neither finding my self particularly named in that infamous Century nor concerned more then any other in those general calumnies I did not think my self obliged to take notice of them It was my expectation rather that some one or other of those who sustained most wrong would have done themselves the right of a vindication and not have suffered those reproaches to have gained belief by such a dul and dangerous silence But at the last finding the cry revived by the Civil Historian the Divine Right of Episcopacy called in question the Bishops and Clergy ignorantly censured for their Proceedings in Convocation and the subordinates of the late Archbishops whereof I had the honour to be one so unhandsomely handled I thought it my duty to appear in defence of those points wherein I found the Author either by inadvertency or want of better intelligence to have been mistaken And so far I was liberum Agens prompted by none but my own good affections to the pulick interess to that undertaking But so I cannot say of my engagings with the Church Historian being solicited thereunto by persons of all Orders Degrees and stations as wel Ecclesiastical as Accademical in the pursuance whereof I could not but take notice of that passage before laid down do the poor Clergy so much right as the nature of an Animadversion might comport withal Nec solum ad nos haec in juriavenit ab illo in the Poets words it is not we alone that are the poor sequestred and ejected Clergy but the whole Church which hath been injured by him in her power and priviledges for the asserting whereof and rectifying such mistakes as I found therein I first applyed my self unto that performance What led me to this Letter-Combate with M. Baxter you will find in the discourse it self In which you may perceive how sensible I am of those reproaches which he so prodigally casts abroad upon those poor men whom the late Ordinance for ejecting of ignorant and scandalous Ministers hath brought under his power I must needs say I might have slipt my self out of this employment as one of those whose casting out he hath disowned among many others under the notion of being Prelatical and so far interessed in the late Civil Wars as my attending on the Kings person at Oxon can ascribe unto me But in this case I will not sever my own interess from that of my Brethren my brethren not like Simeon and Levi in the evil of sin but like to Paul and Barnabas in the evil of Punishment when used despitefully and threatned to be stoned to death by the men of Iconium For though we are all guilty through human frailties of our several sins yet for those sins we stand accomptable onely at the Bar of Heaven Those scandalous crimes under colour whereof so many of us have received the punishment of Sequestration and Ejection that the Hands of men falling so short from being proved that the nonproseuting of the Evidence to a legal Tryal may rationally be thought to acquit us of them And therefore I shall weave up your defence in the same peece with my own that as we fell together we may stand together in the recovery of that Reputation which is dearer to us then our lives not suffering our common Adversaries to deal with us as Ignorant Jurors do too often in passing their verdict upon the Prisoners at the Bar when without consideration of the crimes or evidence they resolve to save one half and hang the other Whatsoever I have done herein as it
exemplifying in my many reprâ—acâ—es against extemporary Prayer the holy improvement of the Lords day c. but where I beseech you in what Book or Books of mine may a man meet with any of those many reproaches against extemporary Prayer May you not be again mistaken and find upon a further search that those many reproaches against extemporary Prayer are to be found in D. â—olkinton or in some body else The most that I have said agâ—inst extemporary Prayer occurreth in a brief discours touching the form of Prayer appointed to be used before the Sermon Sect. 22. in which you read That whereas the Church prescribes a set form of Prayer in her publique Liturgie from which it is not lawful for any of her Ministers to vary or recede she did it principally to avoid all unadvised effusions of gross and undigested Prayers as little capable of piety as they are uterly void of order and this she did upon the reason given in the Melevitan Council viz. least else through ignorance or want of care any thing should be uttered contrary to the rules of faith Ne forte aliquid contra fidem vel per ignorantiam vel per minus studium siâ— compositum as the Canon hath it And again page 348. We plainly see by the effects what the effect of theirs would tend to What is the issue of the liberty most men have taken to themselves too many of that sort who most stand upon it useing such passages in their Prayers before their Sermons that even their Prayers in the Psalmist's language are turned into sin Thus find we in the General Preface That the inconveniencies which the liberty hath brought upon us in these latter days are so apparent that it is very hard to say whether the liberty of Prophesying or the licentiousness in Praying what and how we list hath more conduced to these distractions which are now amongst us and if there were no such effect too visible of this licentiousness which I desire the present state to take notice of the scandal which is thereby given unto our Religion in speaking so irreverently with such vain repetitions and tautologies to almighty God as in extemporary and unpremeditated Prayers is too frequently done seem a sufficient consideration to bring us back again to that ancient form which the wisedom of the Church prescribed to prevent that mischief And finally that men never did so litterally offer unto God the Calves of their lips as they have done of late since the extemporary way of praying hath been taken up â—nd if it were prohibited by the Law of Moses to offer any thing unto God in the way of the legal Sacrifices which was maimed sported or imperfect how can it rationally be conceived that God should be delighted with those Oblations or spiritual Sacrifices which have nothing almost in them but maims spots and blemishes These are my words I must confess but that they are reproaches I must needs deny But first I do not speak these words of all extemporary Prayers in general or more particularly of those which gifted men may make in their private devotions but of those unpremeditated undigested Prayers which men ungifted and unlearned men have poured out too frequently in the Church of God And secondly if they be reproaches they are such reproaches and such only as when a man is said to have been slandered with a matter of truth and for the proof hereof besides the authority of the Council of Melevis before remembred I maâ— bring that our incomparable Hooker in the fifth Book of his Eccles Politie Num 25. Who though he actually saw but few did foresee many of â—hoâ—e inconveniencies which the humor of extemporary Prayer at last would bring into the publique worship of Almighty God for there he tells us of the grievous and scandalous inconveniences whereunto they make themselves daily subject who by their irksome deformities whereby through endless and sensless effusions of undigested Prayers they oftentimes disgrace in most unsufferable manner the worthiest part of Christian duty towards God when being subject herein to no certain order pray both what they list and how they list But behold a greater then Hooker is here even His most Excellent and most Incomparable Majesty the late King CHARLS who telleth us in his large declaration against the Scots That for want of a set form of Prayer they did sometimes pray so ignorantly that it was a shame to all Religion to hear the Majesty of God so barbarously spoken unto and sometimes so seditiously that their very Prayers were either plain libels against Authority or manifest lies stuffed with all the false reports in the Kingdom And what effects he found of them among the English appears by his Proclamation against the Directory bearing date Novemb. 30. Anno 1644. where we are told That by abolishing the Book of common-Common-Prayer there would be a means to open the way and give the liberty to all ignorant factious or evil men to broach their own fancies and conceits be they never so wicked and erroneous and to mislead people into sin and rebellion and to utter those things even in that which they make for their Prayers in their Congregations as in Gods presence which no conscientious man can assent to say Amen to And hereunto I shall add no more but this viz. that the passages produced before out of two of my Books and countenanced both by sad experience and such great Authorities must needs be either true or false if true they can be no reproaches if false why do you not rather study to confute them then reprove me for them 17. The next charge which you lay upon me and thereby render me obnoxious to a new reproof relates to my reproaches against the holy improvements of the Lords day c. How far your c. will extend is hard to say and therefore had you done more wisely had you left it out especially consider how many doubtful descants and ridiculous glosses were made upon a former c. and happily left standing in one of the Canons Anno 1640. for either I am guilty of more reproaches against piety and the power of godlines or I am not guilty if guilty why do you not let me know both their number and nature that I may either plead my innocence or confess my crime If not why do you thus insinuate by this c that you suppress some other charges which you have against me But letting that pass cum ceteris â—rroribus Where I beseech you can you point me to any reproaches of that day or of the holy improvements of it Much I confess is to be found in some of my Books against the superstitious and more then judaical observation of it which cannot come within the compass of being a reproach unto it Might not the Scribes and Pharisees Si licet exemplis in parvo grandibus uti in the Poets words have charged our Saviour with the
like and reckoned him for a reproach to the holy improvements of the Sabbath by justifying his Disciples in plucking off the ears of Corn upon that day commanding the man whom he had cured of his diseases to take up his bed and walk though upon the Sabbath and finally giving this general Aphorism to his Disciples That the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath Then which there could be nothing more destructive of those superstitions wherewith that day was burthened by the Scribes Pharisees and thereby more accommodated to the ease of the Ox and Asse then to the comfort and refreshment of the labouring man might not the latter Rabines among the Jews defend themselves in those ridiculous niceties about the keeping of that Sabbath Queen-Sabbath as they commonly call it for which they stand derided and condemned by all sober Christians by reckoning them for such holy improvements as D. Bound and his Disciples have since encogitated and devised to advance the dignity of the Lords day Saints Sunday as the people called it in times of Popery to as high a pitch Restore the Lords day to that innocent freedom in which it stood in the best and happiest times of Christianity and lay every day fresh burthens upon the consciences of Gods people in your restraints from necessary labours and lawful pleasures which neither we nor our forefathers have been able to bear though christned by the name of holy improvements The coming out of Barbours's Book Printed and secretly dispersed Anno 1628. but walking more confidently abroad with an Epistle Dedicatory to his Sacred Majesty about five years after declare sufficiently what dangerous effects your holy improvements had produced if not stopt in time and stopt they could not be by any who maintain your Principles that poor man being then deceived into the errour of a Saturday Sabbath a neer neighbour of this place hath been of late by the continual inculcating both from the Pulpit and the Press of the perpetual and indispensable morality of the fourth Commandment as it hath been lately urged upon us But so much hath been said of this by others and elsewhere by me that I forbear to press it further nor indeed had I said thus much had you not forced me upon it for my own defence 18. And for those most unjust as well as uncharitable speeches those bitter reproaches as you call them afterwards which you charge upon me in reference to my brethren whom I take for adversaries when you have told me what they are and of whom they are spoken and where a man may chance to find them I shall return a more particular answer to this calumny also but till then I cannot In the mean time where is that ingenuity and justice you so much pretend too you make it foul crime in me not easily to be washed away with the tears of repentance that I have used some tart expressions which you sometimes call bitter reproaches sometimes unjust and uncharitable speeches against my brethren many of them being my inferiours and the best but my equals and take no notice of those odious and reproachful Attributes which you have given unto your Fathers all of them being your superiours de facto though perhaps you will not grant them to be such de jure You call me in a following passage the Primipilus by which I finde you have studied Godwin's Antiquities or chief of the defenders of the late turgid or persecuting sort of Prelates whither with greater scorn to me or reproach to them it is hard to say the merit of the accusation we shall see anon I note here only by the way in S. Paul's expression that that wherein you judge another you condemn yourself seeing you do the same things and perhaps far worse But to return unto my self take this in general that though I may sometimes put vinegar into my inck to make it quick and opulative as the case requireth yet there is nothing of securrility or malice in it nothing that savoureth of uncharitableness or of such bitter reproaches as you unjustly tax me with But when I meet with such a firebrand as M. Burton whose ways you will not seem to justifie in that which followeth I hope you cannot think I should pour Oyl upon him to encrease the flame and not bring all the water I had to quench it whither soul or clean Or when I meet with such unsavoury peices of wit and mischief as the Minister of Lincoln Diocesse and the Church Historian would you not have me rub them with a little salt to keep them sweet The good Samaritan when he undertook the care of the wounded passenger is said to have poured into his wounds both Oyl and Wine that is to say the Oyl to cherish and refresh it and the Wine to cleanse it Oleum quo foveatur Vinum quo mordeatur as I have read in some good Authors he had not been a skilful Chyrurgion if he had done otherwise one plaister is not medcinal to all kind of sores some of which may be cured with Balm when others more corrupt and putrified do require a lancing but â—o I shall not deal with M. Baxter nor have I dealt so with others of his perswasion insomuch that I have received thanks from the Ministers of Surrey and Buckingham shire in the name of themselves and of that party for my fair and respectful language to them both in the Preface to my History of the Sabbath and the Conclusion to the same 19. But you go on and having given me some good councel which I shall thank you for anon you tell me that besides those many bitter reproaches of my Brethren which I take for adversaries I rise unto such bloody desires of hanging them as the better remedy then burning their Books For this you point us to the History of the Sabbath pag. 2 pag. 254. and in the general Preface to Ecclesia vindicata Sect. 8. In which last place we find it thus That partly by the constancy and courage of the Arch-Bishop Whitgift who succeeded Grindal Anno 1583. the opportune death of the Earl of Leicester their chief Patron Anno 1588. and the incomparable pains of judicious Hooker Anno 1595. but principally by the seasonable execution of Copping and Thacker hanged at Saint Edmonds bury in Suffolke for publishing the Pamphlets of Robert Brown against the Book of common-Common-prayer they became so quier that the Church seems to be restored to some hopes of peace Nothing in this that savoureth of such bloody desires as you charge upon me I am sure of that and there is little more then nothing in the other passage where speaking of D. Bound's Book of Sabbath-Doctrines and the sad consequents thereof I add that on the discovery of it this good ensued that the said Books were called in by Arch Bishop Whitgift in his Vâ—sitations and by several Letters and forbidden to be Printed and made common by Sir
tam stultus sum ut diversitate explanationum tuarum me ladi putem quia nec tu laesiris si nos contraria senserimus A POST-SCRIPT To the former Answer Containing The Exchange of Letters between Dr. Heylyn and Dr. Barnard tonching the intended burning of the book called Respondit Petrus With that which followed thereupon 51. MY Answer long enough before must be made longer by this Post script because I would not leave you M. Baxter without full satisfaction to every point you have objected in your Letter or keep you longer in suspense then needs I must You gave some glances in your Letter of the burning of Books for which you had no ground in either of the places you refer me to where you find nothing at all touching the burning of the books of the Sabbatarians but only of the suppressing and calling of them in which made me apt enough to think as I told you then that you intended that for a private nip relating to a book of mine called Respondit Petrus which was publickly noised abroad to have been publickly burnt in London as indeed the burning of it was severely prosecuted though it scaped the fire A full account whereof being too long to be incorporated into the body of that Answer I promised then to give you in a place by it self And therefore I have writ this Post-script to make good that promise I wish you too well to suffer you to remain long in any errour which I am able to remove or to be wrought upon by any false rumours and reports which I am able to disperse and as I have endeavoured the first in all my applications to you so I shall now endeavour the last that I may disperse the others also And this I shall the rather do that I may Duos parletes una fidelia dealbare as in the Latine or Kill two birds with one Stone in the English Proverb My satisfying you in this publique manner will much contribute to the undeceiving of such others also who either out of too much credulity in themselves or dis-affection toward me have been as apt to report as they were easie to believe it Many such I have had the chance to meet with as well at London as elsewhere in whom this Fame had taken so deep a root that I could hardly pluck it up Some of them whom I endeavoured to perswade to a dis-belief of that false report conceiving rather that I rather spake favourably for my selfe then advantagiously and impartially for the truth of the fact And if those persons whom I met with were so hardly satisfied when they heard the story from my self how much more hardly could such others receive satisfaction who live farther off and could have it only from my friends But beside this there was another motive to induce me to it and that is the preventing of all such as possibly may make use of that report to my disadvantage For whereas Mr. Sanderson in the end of his Post Haste scurrilous Pamphlet called the Reply c. hath used some threats That whensoever I shall appear armed again he will be ready to meet me at my own weapon be it sharp or smooth he will be apt to catch at any thing which may serve his turn without examining the truth or enquiring into the certainty of it The like measure I may chance to have from some others also who speak as big and threaten me as much as he but threatened men live long they use to say so perhaps may I and sure I am that none of these threatnings will prevail so far upon me as to shorten the number of those dayes I have to come for your sake therefore and for theirs I have drawn up a full and perfect Narrative of the whole business in this manner following The Intercourse of LETTERS Between D. Heylyn and D. Barnard Touching the intended burning of the Book called Respondit Petrus 52. PHylosophers tell us of a Meteor called Ignis fatuus whose property it is to lead men out of their way and draw them many times into dangerous precipices and such an Ignis fatuus hath of late deceived and abused many in all parts of the Land whom therefore I shall endeavour to unundeceive and bring them back into the way of truth and knowledge The fame is and it is made a common fame by the spreading of it That the Book called Respondit Petrus hath been publiquely burnt and burnt by the order of the Council A fame which hath little truth in it though it hath more colour for it and appearances of it then many other charges which have lately been laid upon me Concerning which the Reader may be pleased to know That on Saturday the 26. of June last past intelligence was given to a friend of mine that an Order was sent by the Council to the Lord Mayor of London requiring him to see the Book called Respondit Petrus to be called in and publiquely burnt Notice whereof being given to me who was then in London I was advised by some of my friends to neglect the matter it being a thing that would redound unto my honour as they pleased to say considering it might be rationally concluded by all knowing me that the Book could not other wise be confuted then by fire and faggot I knew full well what sentence had been passed by Facitus upon the order of the Senate or great Consul of Rome for burning the Books of Cremutius Cordus the Historian Neque aliud externi Reges aut qui eadem sevitia usi sunt nisi dedecus sibi a que illis gloriam peperere that is to say that such who formerly had exercised that kind of severity gained nothing but ignominie to themselves and glory to all those whose Books they burnt But for my part I was rather of Sir John Falstaffs minde in that particular and did not like such grinning honour and therefore chose rather to prevent the obloquie then to glory in it In order whereunto I thought fit to apply my self to D. Barnard of Grays Inn who as he first began the quarrel in publishing the Book Entituled The Judgment of the late Lord Primate c. so was he supposed to have moved the first wheel in the Engine although he stood behind the Curtain and appeared not in it conceiving that if he might be taken off the whole business would soon come to nothing without any more ado upon which ground I wrote the following Letter to him on the Munday morning and received his answer to the same in the afternoon the Coppies of which Letter and the answer to it I shall here subjoyn Dr. Heylyn's Letter to Dr. Barnard SIR 53. WIth what unwillingness I entred upon my answer to that Book of Yours Entituled The Judgment of the Late Lord Primate c. I doubt not but you have found before this time both in the Preface to it and the two first Paragraphs of it In handling
what Grounds I had had to affirm that Dr. Burlow did declare his trouble for some wrong done to Dr. Reynolds c. in relating the Hampton-Court Controversie Sir I will not censure you to have no Ingenuity but yet you must pardon me if I refuse to give you any further account of the matter till I understand first whether you will deal as plainly with me about some things contained in your own Examen Historicum Will you send me word what the names of those men are who said two of your Sermons about the Tares had done more mischief to the Papists then all the Sermons that ever Dr. Prideaux preached against them and what the name of that man is who did by Bishop Williams his appointment give a pension out of his place for the maintenance of a Scholar 2. I would gladly know whether you intend what I write onely for your own private satisfaction and not for publick view 3. I would willingly be informed what you would take for satisfaction whether it will suffice if I prove the business from the mouth of one who was a lover of the English Prelacy Liturgy and Ceremony When you have satisfied me you may suddenly expect an answer from him who again subscribes himself Your humble Servant Henry Hickman Magd. Coll. Ap. 1. 1659. 11. These Answers leaving me as unsatisfied as before I was I found that I had lost both my hopes and labour for the declining of a business which I was not willing to appear in if any satisfaction had been given me otherwise And therefore since he was not pleased to declare himselfe so freely to me in a private way as to beget between us such a right understanding as might prevent all further trouble which his first Letter seemed to wish I see not how I can avoid the making of a more publick business of it then I first intended unless I should betray my self unto scorn and censure My Letters being in his hands cannot be recalled and if I should not now proceed to give the world that satisfaction which I lookt for from him in the retracting of his Calumnies and salfe Reports he and his friends might think I could not In the pursuit whereof I purposed to have gone no further then the vindicating of my self and those whose names are dear unto me from the obstinacy of his Reproaches But he hath hinted me I thank him to another Argument relating to the Historicall part of his discourse of which perhaps I may render you an account also before we part Beginning at the lowest step I shall ascend at last by leisure to the top of the Stairs that having answered for my self I may be credited the more when I speak for others The Answer of P. Heylyn D. D. to Mr. Hickman's Letters of April 1. Relating to some Passages in a Book called The Justification of the Fathers c. 11. IT was good Councel which Demaratus of Corinth gave to Philip of Macedon when he advised him to settle all things well at home before he intermedled in the differences amongst the Grecians In correspondence whereunto I shall first do my best Endeavour to acquit my self from those Reproaches which the Justificator with a Prodigal hand hath bestowed upon me and thereby fit my self the better for advocating in behalf of those eminent persons of whose Renown I am more solicitous then my one Concernments Beginning therefore with my self in the first place I must take notice of his practise to make me clash with the Lord Primate whose Rest I desire not to disturbe upon any occasion He should have first reconciled those two passages which I proposed to D. Barnard p. 103. 104. of Respondit Petrus before he had made it such a wonder that a Doctor of Divinity should so unworthily handle a Reverend person and fasten upon him a dissent from the Church of England in a mater wherein he doth so perfectly agree with her If so if he agree so perfectly with the Church of England how comes he to differ from himselfe and speak such contradictions as D. Barnard nor no other of his great Admirers can find a way to reconcile to the sence of the Church Or if they can or that they think those contradictions not considerable for making his Agreement the lesse perfect with the Church of England you have gained the point which you contended for in your dispute which M. Buâ—le and D. Barnard laboured to deprive you of in his Book of the Lord Primates Judgment intended against none by name but your selfe and me though others be as much concerned in the General Interess 12. Much good may the Concession do you What comes after next the burning of the Book by the common Hangman I thought that Ignis fatuus had had been quencht sufficiently by the assurance which I gave him to the contrary in my Letter of the 19th of March But his desire to have it so is so prevalent with him that he neither doth deny the words nor can find any Reason to be ashamed of them be they never so false And what Ground can we find for so great a confidence 1. He appeals unto an Ordinance made in the year 1646. Which Ordinance he pretends to be still in force but whether it be so or not is a harder Question then a greater Lawyer can determine That Ordinance making â—o Report he flyes next to a common noise which Rings still in his Ears and must gain credit either as a noise or common or as both together though for the most part the louder the noise is and the more common it grows the less credit to be given unto it You know well what the two great Poets say of Fame Fama malum velox quae veris addere falsa Gaudet Eminimo sua per mendacia crescit But yet not seeming to lay much strength upon common Fame though it be one of his best Authors in some other cases he pretends unto a special Revelation from the Privy Council and grows so confident upon the strength of the intelligence that he holds at White-Hall which all great States-men must pretend to that he is sure the Book de Facto had been so disgraced though whether disgraced by being so burnt is another question if the sickness and death of the late Protector had not put the Privy Council upon minding maters of higher concernment The contrary whereof my Postscript unto M. Baxter hath most clearly Evidenced 13. The second charge wherein I stand single by my self is onely toucht at in the Letter where I am said to have bestowed some ugly words upon a Colledge not to be mentioned without honour insisted on more largely in the fag end of the Book without the least coherence or relation to it And there this man of brass makes me worse then a Tinker a rude Expression which declares him to be better studied in his Metaphisicks then his Moral Philosophy in committing more and fouler
remedies That which concerns me in relation to Bishop Burlow is my acquitting him from shewing any partiality in summing up the conference at Hampton Court a matter never charged upon him by the Puritan faction more then twenty years after his death and more then thirty years after the publishing of that Book which as the Church Historian saith to have been complained of so doth he only say not prove it and affirmations or complaints are no legal evidences where there are any reasons of strength to evince the contrary but what he wants shall be supplied by the Antagonist who fearing to be prevented in it puts the best legg forwards crying out with more hast then good speed That he will Answer the Doctor Admit him to his Answer and he will tell us That the times were evil that the prudent did think themselves obliged to be silent and that God did so order the matter that they lost no credit by a quiet committing their cause to him How so Because saith he D. Burlow lying on his death bed did with grief complain of the wrong which he had done to D. Reynolds and others that joyned with him in that conference If this be prooved we will admit of all the rest but if this be not proved all the rest is nothing And for the proof of this he is able as he saith to give a satisfactory account to any person of ingenuity who desires it of him I would have took him at his word desiring earnestly to be satisfied in the truth thereof presuming that I might lay claim to so much ingenuity as would entitle me to a capacity of obtaining that favour 20. But in this point I reckoned without my host for though I pressed my desire so far as to conclude that if he did not gratifie me with an Answer I should think he could not yet I am stil as far from satisfaction as at first I was I must first gratifie him in answering such demands as he puts unto me impertinent to the cause in hand and such as the nature of the point in issue cannot bind me too by any Rule of Disputation in the Schools of Logick or else the evidence desired must not be produced I gave some reason why I was not willing to name the parties who received or paid the pension given by Bishop Williams towards the maintenance of a Scholer two of the parties to my knowledg and the third for any thing I know to the contrary being still alive otherwise I could not only name the men but produce the acquittance And for the words relating to Bishop Prideaux they were spoke at a great Table in the Court in the hearing of many and being spoken in the Court must refer only to such Sermons as were preached at the Court and not to all which had been preached elswhete by that learned Bishop The Sermons will be shortly published if not done already and will be able to speak as much for themselves as can be desiâ—ed of me to do The witness in the cause touching Bishop Burlow may appear securely without drawing danger to himself and will be heard no Question both with love and freedom For if he be a lover of the English Prelacy Liturgie and Ceremonies who is to attest unto this truth I know of none who can refuse to give credit to it but if he take up the report at the second hand from one who told him that he took it from the Doctors mouth and not from the man himself that spake it his witness may be lyable to just exception and then we are but as we were without proof at all He vaunts it somewhere in his Book That he is furnished with a cloud of Witnesses to justifie his cause against you but in this point and the next that follows his Witnesses are all in a cloud shadowed as Aeneas and his followers were from the sight of Dido so that no mortal eye can see them Et idem est non esse et non apparere was the Rule of old 21. Upon no better grounds then this he lays a fouler reproach on the late most Reverend and still Arch-Bishop of Canterbury as being turned out of the Divinity Schools with disgrace by D. Holland in publicis commitiis for but endaevouring to maintain That Bishops differed in order and not in degree only from inferiour Presbiters I reproved him for this in my first Letter and told him how much he would be troubled to produce his Author he shifted it off by saying that he means no otherwise by being turned out of the Schooles with disgrace then that he was publiquely checkt by the said D. Holland for maintaining the said opinion and having M. Prinnes Breviate for the truth of this he thinks it a sufficient proof also to confirm the other but is it possible that any man who pretends but to a grain of ingenuity or learning should dare to lay so base a calumnie on so great a person and hope to salve the matter by such a ridiculous explication as may justly render him contemptible to the silliest School-boy Assuredly if he received a publique check be that same with being disgracefully turned out of the Schools there must be more turned out of the Schools with as much disgrace because as much reprehended and checkt as he of whom the foulest mouth could never raise so leud a slander The Doctor of the Chair in the Divinity Schools at Oxon would be more absolute in his decisions and determinations were this once allowed of then all the Popes that ever sate in Peter's Chair since they first laid claim to it 22. But he goes on and adds that this disgrace was put upon him for maintaining such a novel Popish Position as that before Not Novel I am sure for the ancient Writers call the solemn form of consecrating a Bishop by no other name then that of Ordinatio Episcopi and if the Bishop at his Consecration doth receive no Order his consecration ought not to be styled an Ordination And if it be not Novel then it is not Popish for id verum quod primum as they Father it unlesse he will be pleased to make Popery Primitive and intitle it to the Eldest times of Christianity But Popish if it needs must be then must the Form of Consecration of Arch-Bishops Bishops c. be accounted Popish for which it stands acquitted by the Book of Articles and the two Parliaments of K. Edw. 6. Queen Eliz. must be Popish also by which that Form of Consecration was confirmed and Ratified Twice in the Preface to the Book we find mention of three Orders of Ministers in the Church of Christ Bishops Priests and Deacons and this distinction made as antient as the very times of the Apostles And in the Book it selfe besides the three distinct forms of Ordination the one for Bishops the other for Priests and the third for Deacons in one of the Prayers used at the Consecrating of a
the whole Work was finished confirmed and put in execution before either of them was brought over dispatcht soon after their arrival to their several Chair'es Martyr to the Divinity Lecture in Oxon and Bucer unto that of Cambridge where he lived not long And dying so quickly as he did vix salutata Accademia as my Author hath it though he had many auditors there yet could he noâ— gain many Disciples in so short a time And though Peter Martyr lived to see the death of King Edward and consequently the end of the Convocation Anno 1552. in which the Articles of Religion were first composed and agreed on yet there was little use made of him in advising and much less in directing any thing which concerned that business For being a stranger and but one and such an one as was of no Authority in Church or State he could not be considered as a Master builder though some use might he made of him as a Labourer to advance the work Calvin had offered his assistance but it was refused Which showes that Cranmer and the Rest to whom he made offer of his service Si quis mei usus esset as his own words are if they thought it needful were not so favourable to the man or his Doctrines either as to make him or them the Rule of their Reformation 33. Pass we next to Alexander Nowel Dean of St. Pauls and Prolocutor of the Convocation An. 1â—â—2 in which the Articles were Revised and afterwards ratified and confirmed by the Queens authority In which capacity I must needs grant it for a truth that he understood the conduct of all affairs in that Convocation as well as any whosoever But then it is to be observed that your Adversary grants their 17. Articles to be the very same verbatim which had before passed in the Convocation of King Edw. 6. No new sence being put upon it by the last establishment And if no new sence were put upon it as most sure there was not it must be understood no otherwise then according to the Judgement of those learned men and Godly Martyrs before remembred who concurred unto the making of it From which if M. Nowels sence should differ in the least degree it is to be looked upon as his own not the sence of the Church And secondly it cannot rationally be inferred from his being Prolocutor in that Convocation and the knowledge which he needs must have of all things which were carried in it that therefore nothing was concluded in that Convocation which might be contrary to his own judgement as a private person admitting that he was inclinable to Calvin in the points disputed which I grant not neither For had he been of his opinions the spirit of that Sect is such as could not be restrained from showing it self dogmatically and in terms express and not occasionally onely or upon the by and that too in such general terms that no particular comfort for your Adversary can be gathered from them And it were worth the while to know first why your Antagonist appealing to his Catechism should decline the Latin Edition of it which had been authorized to be publiquely taught in all the Grammer Schools of England and the English translation of the same by a friend of the Authors 1572. both still in use and both reprinted in these times since the year 1647 And secondly what it was which moved him to fly for succour to the first draught of it in the English Tongue out of which the two last were extracted that first draught or Edition being laid aside many years ago and not approved by any such publick Authority as the others were somewhat there must be in it which brought that first Edition so soon out of credit and therefore possibly thought fit by your Adversary for the present turn and thought to let us know which Catechism it is he means he seems to distinguish it from the other by being dedicated to the two Arch-Bishops yet that doth rather betray his ignorance then advance his cause the Authors own Latine Edition and the English of it being dedicated to the two Arch-Bishops as well as that 34. But since he hath appealed to that English Catèchism to her English Catechism let him go In which he cannot find so much as one single question touching the Doctrine of Predestination or the points depending thereupon and therefore is necessitated to have recourse unto the Articles of the Catholick Church the members and ingredients of it from thence he doth extract these two passages following the first whereof is this viz. To the Church do all they properly belong as many as do truly fear honour and call upon God altogether applying their minds to live holily and Godly and with putting all their trust in God do most assuredly look for the blessings of Eternal life they that be stedfast stable and constant in this faith were chosen and appointed and as we term it predestinate to this so great felicity The second which follows not long after as his Book directeth is this that followeth viz. The Church is the body of the Christian Commonwealth i. e. the universal number and fellowship of the faithful whom God through Christ hath before all beginning of time appointed to everlasting life And here again we are to Note that the First of these two passages not being to be found in the Latine Edition nor the English Translation of the same is taken almost word for word out of Poynets Catechism and therefore to be understood in no other sence then before it was And that the second makes the Church to consist of none but the Elect which the nine and tenth Article makes in a more comprehensive signification So that to salve this sore he is fain to fly to the destinction of a visible and invisible Church fit for his definition unto that which he calls invisible making the visible Church of Christ to consist of such as are assembled to hear the Gospel of Christ sincerely taught to call on God by prayer and receive the Sacraments Which persons so assembled together are by the Article called a Cong egation of faithful men as well as those which constitute and make up the Church invisible And yet I doubt your Adversary will not not grant them all to be in the number of the Elect. But granting that the Church doth consist of none but the Elect that is to say of none but such who have been through Christ appointed to everlasting life from before all time as is there affirmed yet there is nothing in all this which justifieth the absolute and irrespective decree of the predestinarians nothing of Gods invincible workings in the hearts of his chosen ones which your Antagonist maintains or which doth manifestly make for such a personal Election as he conceives is to be found in many passages of the Common Prayer Book though what those passages are and where they are to be found he keeeps